


An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind; unless I use his eye to replace my own

by morallyambiguous



Series: A Softer Young Justice [2]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-02 23:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morallyambiguous/pseuds/morallyambiguous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The solution is simple because no matter what she does, she will never be able to forget the way her team didn’t trust her, will never be able to forget the way Red Arrow had strolled in and taken the past four months of her life out from under her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind; unless I use his eye to replace my own

At the end of the day, at the end of every day, when she goes home she knows that there are things she will never be able to escape, will never be able to forget. She’ll never be able to forget the snap of the first man she ever killed’s neck, or the heavy hand of her father congratulating her. She’ll never be able to forget the way her sister abandoned her. And no matter what she does, she will never be able to forget the way her team didn’t trust her, will never be able to forget the way Red Arrow had strolled in and taken the past four months of her life out from under her.

She levels her arrow at a bandit in the alley below, and feels nothing as he’s strung up for the police to find later.

She considers changing who she is, because the team doesn’t need two archers, and they’ve long-since picked the archer that they want. She can deal with that. She’s been all by herself since that warm summer night when her sister did what the Cheshire cat does best. Another crook falls to her arrow. The solution is simple, the team doesn’t need two archers, and she doesn’t need the team. 

This time it’s several petty thieves that fall in the face of her arrow, and this time the lack of feeling is even more pronounced. She doesn’t say anything to Green Arrow as they finish off patrol, She hasn’t said anything to him all night, and she knows that it worries him. Well it can worry him, she’s beyond caring. A hand falls on her shoulder, but she shrugs it off. He opens his mouth to speak, but her grappling hook is faster, and she drops down next to the Zeta-Teleporter before he can even finish her name.

Not that it matters. She’s looking for a new name now.

She considers her father’s name for her, in bygone days when she had been his favorite little girl, his little Tigress. But she’s fucking sick of having anything to do with him, of having his hair and sharing his face, so she’s not going to give him anymore of her. Not now, not ever.

She briefly considers Alice, considers playing off of her sister, considers paying her back for abandonment, but she’s tired of giving herself to Jade, too. She’s tired of looking into a face that she used to love, used to look up to, and in the smallest part of her heart still does.

The ceiling of her room is cracked, and the walls are thin, and through them she can hear her mother singing softly in Vietnamese as she prepares for bed. And then she thinks of her mother, of how much she had paid in life to get where she was now, of how much she cared for Artemis, of how much she was still willing to give to Artemis despite it all. How all she had to her name was her two children, one a criminal, one a hero, and an old, tattered costume in the back of a closet collecting dust, and makes up her mind.

When her mother settles down to sleep, Artemis creeps into her room and takes the dust-covered box out of the back of the closet. The leopard print is not what she wants, and she envisions something different. Purple for power and independence, white for a new beginning, and black for elegance and strength.

She pulls herself off the team roster, and isn’t surprised when no one contacts her. She ups her training though, putting in long hours at the gym when she isn’t studying for school. She starts to make friends at school, and lets Batman and Green Arrow believe that her superhero life was a passing fad. Lets them think that she was just chasing a passing fancy.

There’s a purple, black, and white costume at the back of her closet that says otherwise.

There’s a name held back on the tip of her tongue that says otherwise.

There’s a different kind of legacy in her heart that says otherwise.

As she stands in front of a group of thugs in Gotham at the beginning of March, the month of war, she pushes back her black wig from her face, and smirks as they ask her who she is.

There’s one word that says otherwise.

”Huntress.”


End file.
